The Promised Land by Wladyslaw Reymont

Ambition and corruption in Poland’s Industrial Revolution

The Promised Land is a novel by Polish author Wladyslaw Reymont, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1924. This novel was originally serialized in a Polish newspaper from 1897 to 1898 before being published in book form in 1899. Reymont is considered one of Poland’s greatest authors, and The Promised Land (Ziemia obiecana in Polish) is generally regarded as one of his best works, along with his four-volume novel The Peasants (Chlopi).

The Promised Land is a story of ambition and greed set during the Industrial Revolution in Poland. It takes place in Lodz, presently Poland’s fourth largest city and apparently an industrial center. Reymont’s descriptions of the city call to mind the traditional American view of Pittsburgh as a factory town. Instead of steel, however, the main export of Lodz is textiles. Several successful factories operate in the city, and questionable business ethics are rampant. As the novel opens, three young career climbers have plans to try their hands in this competitive market by opening their own factory. Charles Borowiecki is a Polish nobleman currently working as the right-hand man to Lodz’s top cloth manufacturer. Moritz Welt is a Jewish trader in fabrics and raw materials. Max Baum, a German, wants to break away from his father’s business, an old-fashioned handloom factory in decline. As the three are raising capital for their venture, Borowiecki comes across an insider trading tip. To take advantage of this knowledge, the three partners agree to send Welt off an a business trip to secure a lucrative deal. Meanwhile, Borowiecki makes the rounds of the social scene among the rich industrialists of Lodz and, though he’s engaged to a woman from his rural hometown, he embarks on an affair with a married woman.

My favorite author is the French writer Emile Zola, who in my opinion took the art of the novel to its apex. Reymont is the one writer in the world who is excellent enough and stylistically similar enough to be mistaken for Zola. (If Reymont had published as many books as Zola, maybe he’d be my favorite author.) It’s hard to say whether Reymont was a “disciple” of Zola and his school of Naturalism, or if their two styles developed coincidentally. Either way, Reymont is a world-class writer of prose fiction who deserves to be better known and more widely translated.

The Promised Land is deliberately and brutally unromantic. Reymont describes Lodz as an urban mud puddle shrouded in smog. At least two of the book’s three heroes are decidedly unheroic and would sell their souls to be rich and successful. The relationships and prejudices between the three prevalent races in Lodz—Poles, Germans, and Jews—are explored throughout the story. Anti-Semitism is a factor in the plot, as some characters are anti-Semitic, but I wouldn’t call the book itself anti-Semitic because it exhibits both positive and negative portrayals of Jews, as well as Poles and Germans, for that matter. The vilest villain in the novel is capitalism itself, which drives the characters’ behavior. This is emblematic of the Naturalist school’s focus on how social forces shape human beings and control their lives.

The problem with The Promised Land is that it takes a long time to get going. The final quarter of the novel is riveting, but you have to trudge through a lot of description and exposition to get there. At first it seems the novel is going to be about these three friends and their factory, but Reymont departs from the trio for extended periods to introduce dozens of other characters. In his desire to capture the broad scope of real life in Lodz, there are too many plot threads, too many romances, and too many dinner parties. Some narrowing of focus would have been an improvement. The Promised Land doesn’t quite measure up to The Peasants, but this is a classic work of literature by a superb author and will appeal to anyone with an interest in Polish history and culture.  

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Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse, translated and edited by Paul Selver

Eastern European stories and poems in English translation

Wladyslaw Reymont

As the title suggests, Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse is a collection of short literary works from Eastern Europe. In this context, “Slavonic” means the same as “Slavic.” The book includes selections from Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, Serbian, Croatian, and Slovenian authors. This volume was edited by British writer Paul Selver, who also translated all of the works into English. In addition to writing his own novels and poetry, Selver was a multilinguist who also translated German, French, and Norwegian works. He was primarily known for his Czech translations, in particular the works of Karel Capek (who does not appear in this book). This anthology was published in 1919, but the works included date as far back as 1845.

The prose section of this volume includes short stories, brief essays, and a couple of one-act plays. A few recognizable names appear in this volume. The great Russian master of short stories Anton Chekhov provides a finely drawn comical tale, “In a Foreign Land.” Polish Nobel Prize-winner Wladyslaw Reymont is represented by a scene excerpted from his novel Promised Land. Polish author Boleslaw Prus’s story “From the Legends of Ancient Egypt” calls to mind his novel Pharaoh, set in the same era. The rest of the names on the table of contents will likely be new to the vast majority of English-language readers. The better entries include Czech author Jan Neruda’s “The Vampire,” which is not the horror story its title implies, but it does deliver a surprisingly morbid ending. Polish writer Wiktor Gomulicki’s portrait of an aged farmer is the literary equivalent of a gritty Gustave Courbet painting. Ukraine’s foremost poet of the 19th century, Taras Shevtchenko, tells his own story in an autobiographical essay written for a literary journal. Reymont’s selection is the best in the book, but if this were a short-story Olympics, the Russians would take the gold with strong showings by Chekhov, Dmitri Merezhkovsky, and Fyodor Sologub.

The latter half of the book is devoted to poetry, about 130 pages worth from the authors of seven nations. Almost all are written in rhyming verse, with Selver doing his best to preserve the rhyme schemes in his English translations. Many are romantic evocations of nature typical of the late 19th century. The more interesting selections deal with subject matter unique to the authors’ nationalities and ethnicity, the most obvious example being Czech poet Petar Preradovic’s anthemic “To Slavdom.” Shevtchenko’s poem “If Lordlings, Ye Could Only Know . . .” depicts a hellish view of serfdom. Petr Bezruc, in his series of poems, laments the plight of the oppressed Silesian Czechs. One surprising entry is Czech poet Antonin Sova’s “To Theodor Mommsen.” Rather than a tribute to the German Nobel laureate and classical historian, Sova’s poem is an extended insult that attacks Mommsen as the “arrogant spokesman of slavery.”

Classic Slavic literature is hard to come by in English translation. Selver’s welcome anthology does the valuable service of introducing the British or American reader to many hitherto unfamiliar authors. He even includes helpful mini-biographies of each writer. If you discover authors you like here, however, it may be impossible to find further samples of their work in English. Overall, the good and bad entries in this volume average out to a middling collection. Those with an interest in Eastern European culture, however, will appreciate the bits of history, artistic heritage, and national customs revealed in these stories and poems. Because of the large quantity of verse, it will especially appeal to readers who enjoy poetry.

Stories in this collection
(Also 130 pages of poems, not listed below)

In a Foreign Land by Anton Chekhov

My Life by Dimitri Merezhkovsky

The Tiny Man by Fyodor Sologub

The Demigod by S. N. Sergeyev-Tsensky

Autobiography by Taras Shevtchenko

The Ploughman by Wiktor Gomulicki

From the Legends of Ancient Egypt by Boleslaw Prus

Chopin by Stanislaw Przybyszewski

In the Old Town at Lodz by Wladyslaw Reymont

Sonia by Jan Svatopluk Machar

The Vampire by Jan Neruda

The Advent of Spring in the South by Arne Novák

June (play in one act) by Frána Srámek

The Latin Boy by Simo Matavulj

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Literature of the “Soil”

Agrarian epics from around the world
As an enthusiast of classic literature, Old Books by Dead Guys loves to review epic novels. Just because a story is epic, however, doesn’t mean it has to be set in ancient Rome, a war-torn battlefield, or outer space. Some of the best epics take place right at home on the farm. In these “peasant” epics, hard-working multigenerational families carve a living from the soil while contending with poverty, family conflicts, and the unforgiving elements. Such books often bear a strident message of social justice, the dignity of labor, and in some cases perhaps even hints of socialist revolution. Every nation’s literature has got to have at least one great agrarian epic. Realist writers of all nations have captured the heroic drama in the daily life of their homeland’s agriculturalists. Today at Old Books by Dead Guys, we celebrate the literature of “earth,” “soil,” and “dust,” listed below in chronological order. Click on the titles below to read the full reviews.

  

Sons of the Soil (Les Paysans, 1855) by Honoré de Balzac (France) - 3.5 stars
This is Balzac’s final novel, also known as Les Paysans or The Peasantry. The story takes place in the Burgundy region of France and focuses on the antagonism between a land-owning count and the peasants of his district. Rather than glamorizing farming life, Balzac approaches the story from an aristocratic perspective that makes the poor farmers the villains of the story. The plot is like a comical chess game in which the peasants try everything they can think of to rob, cheat, or swindle their landlord. Not exactly the message one usually looks for in an agrarian epic, but it does make for one entertaining novel.

Virgin Soil (1877) by Ivan Turgenev (Russia) - 4 stars
Virgin Soil is Russian realist Ivan Turgenev’s final novel. This is not really a peasant epic, but it does deal with agricultural life. The narrative takes place in the 1860s, at a time when a populist movement was gaining influence in Russia. Urban middle-class intellectuals venture out into the farmlands to preach socialist ideas to workers and the rural poor, hoping to inspire a revolution against the feudal system maintained by the Tsarist government. Like Balzac above, however, Turgenev’s depiction of these revolutionaries is quite unflattering and satirical. Though the main focus of the novel may be political, it does provide a vivid depiction of rural life in Russia.

The Earth (La Terre, 1887) by Emile Zola (France) - 5 stars
The official opinion of Old Books by Dead Guys is that Emile Zola is the world’s greatest novelist, and this is his second greatest novel, after Germinal. The Earth takes place in the Beauce, an agricultural region between Chartres and Orleans, where families have cultivated the same plots of land for generations. When one of these veteran farmers, Old Fouan, feels himself ready for retirement, he divides up his holdings among his three children. Not one of them, however, is happy with the portion he receives, which leads to animosity and treachery. Zola’s depiction of farm life is gritty and unglamorized. He captures both the dirty, exhausting toil and the spiritual satisfaction of agriculture in a range of moods from the terrifying to the hilarious. A masterpiece.

Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896) by Hendrik Pontoppidan (Denmark) - 4.5 stars
This is one of only a few works available in English by Pontoppidan, a Nobel Prize winner. The story takes place in rural Denmark in the late nineteenth century. As in Turgenev’s Virgin Soil, discussed above, the proliferation of liberal democratic ideals has begun to undermine the authority of the conservative aristocracy and the Church. A new young priest arrives in a seaside parish in rural Denmark. Rather than adopt the party line of his church, he sympathizes with the peasants and bears a romantic image of the farming life as a more honest and natural way of living. Such liberal ideals infuriate his superiors and threaten his career in the clergy. Through expert descriptive prose, Pontoppidan delivers an authentic slice of Danish rural life.

The Octopus (1901) by Frank Norris (California, USA) - 5 stars
Although it doesn’t have “Earth” or “Soil” in its title, The Octopus is one of America’s greatest agricultural epics. It concerns the lives of wheat farmers in Tulare County, California. Based on a real-life incident, the Mussel Slough Tragedy (1880), this novel tells the story of a violent conflict between the farmers of this community and an all-powerful railroad corporation (the “octopus” referenced in the title). In his portrayal of the rural landscape and agricultural life, Norris displays an extraordinary faculty for natural description and an exceptional talent for drawing gripping scenes of ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances. If you’re looking for the Great American Novel, this is it. 

The Peasants (four volumes, 1904-1909) by Wladyslaw Reymont (Poland) - 5 stars
This lesser-known Polish novel just might be the gold standard by which all peasant epics must be measured. The Peasants (Polish title: Chlopi) was published in four volumes, one for each of the seasons of the year: Autumn, Winter, Spring, and Summer must be read in order. Over the course of that fictional year, the reader becomes intimately involved in the lives and loves of the residents of the rural town of Lipka. The children of the village’s most prosperous farmer, Mathias Boryna, want him to step down and divide his land among his descendants, but he scoffs at them by marrying a young bride, thus inciting family conflict. Similar in style and subject matter to Zola’s The Earth (see above)—it’s a toss-up as to which of these two epics is the greater work of literature.

Growth of the Soil (1917) by Knut Hamsun (Norway) - 5 stars
This is a masterful peasant epic from Nobel laureate Hamsun. A solitary figure, heavily laden with supplies, trudges into the Norwegian wilds, a day’s walk from the nearest village. He selects a plot of land, cuts the timber, and begins turning the soil. One day a woman comes. Together as man and wife they carve out a living from the earth and build a home, a farm, and a family around which a community forms. Bad influences from the city, however, threaten the peace of their agrarian life. This novel is a truly powerful and moving reading experience.

Dust (1921) by Marcet and Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (Kansas, USA) - 5 stars
Written by Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius, who ran America’s largest publisher of socialist literature from a little town in Southeastern Kansas. Dust is set in that very region and depicts agricultural life in hard-scrabble, unromantic terms. The novel’s primary concern, however, is a dysfunctional marriage between a husband who believes hard work, livestock, land, and profits are all that’s valuable in life and a wife who longs for love, happiness and beauty while condemned to a life of unrelenting toil. The setting may be reminiscent of Willa Cather, but the story bears the brutal naturalism of one of Frank Norris or Emile Zola’s darker works. A Kansas classic!

The Good Earth (1931) by Pearl S. Buck (USA, raised in China) - 5 stars
Pearl S. Buck, though born in America, was raised by missionary parents in China. Her second novel, The Good Earth, took the Western world by storm, for it was the first authentic literary peek behind the silk curtain of Chinese life. Wang Lung and his wife O-Lan start out as poor farmers in a mud-brick house, but through hard work, personal sacrifice, and a little luck, their family gradually rises from humble beginnings to a position of security and status. The story spans the first few decades of the early twentieth century, including scenes of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Qing Dynasty. Though steeped in Chinese culture, The Good Earth transcends time and place with universal themes of love, family, pride, and greed. This is the first volume in a trilogy, followed by Sons and A House Divided.

Of course, you can’t really talk about peasant epics without mentioning John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939). I have not read that book in the last eight years, so it hasn’t been reviewed at Old Books by Dead Guys. I do have a copy and hope to get to it in 2020.

False Alarms
Judging from their titles, these books might sound like agrarian epics, but in fact they are not:

Shallow Soil (1893) by Knut Hamsun (Norway) - 4.5 stars
Although this is a very good novel by Hamsun, it is not about “soil” or anything remotely agricultural. It is a story of modern urban life in late-nineteenth century Kristiania (present-day Oslo). I believe Hamsun uses the title Shallow Soil as a critical metaphor for the lack of national spirit necessary for Norway to develop into a great nation. (His opinion, not mine.)

Children of the Soil (1894) by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Poland) - 1 star
This is a terrible novel and again has very little to do with farming. Some of the characters do own agricultural lands, which peasants farm for them. This is a book about rich people’s problems, however, and a depressingly grueling examination of the institution of marriage.

The Native Soil (1957) by Alan E. Nourse (USA)
This is actually a science fiction novel about a planet made of mud. Definitely not a peasant epic.

The Comedienne by Wladyslaw Reymont

Off to a slow start
In his homeland of Poland, Wladyslaw Reymont is considered one of his country’s greatest authors. Though he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924, very few of his works have been translated into English. His four-volume masterpiece The Peasants hasn’t been printed in English in almost a century, and has yet to show up in an ebook edition. The same is true for another highly acclaimed novel, Promised Land. The one work of Reymont’s that is readily available in a public domain English translation is his first novel, Komediantka (The Comedienne), originally published in 1896.

Janina is the daughter of a railroad stationmaster in the rural town of Bukowiec. Though she is a beautiful young woman pursued by many suitors, she has no interest in marriage and wishes to remain independent, unfettered by the shackles of matrimony. She daydreams about escaping the confines of her hometown and becoming an actress. When she refuses a marriage proposal which had been arranged by her father, he becomes furious and casts her out, disowning her forever. Motivated by the loss of home and family, Janina is finally determined to make her theatrical dreams a reality.

She joins the company of a minor theatre on the outskirts of Warsaw, far removed from the prestigious theatre that bears the city’s name. This Polish equivalent of an “off-off-Broadway” company is a ramshackle operation, constantly in financial dire straits. In fact, the personnel of the company are so unprofessional it’s a wonder they make any money at all. The various players are constantly peppering each other with insults and squabbling over petty matters, not only behind the curtain but even on the very stage itself during public performances. Reymont pays a lot of attention to the malicious banter that’s hurled back and forth between the thespians—too much attention, in fact. For the first two-thirds of the book, this is all that happens. It’s as if the entire purpose of the novel is merely to describe this unpleasant environment and the aural combat that takes place there.

It isn’t until at least chapter eight (out of eleven) when things finally start happening and Janina begins to make any kind of progress either positive or negative. Her lofty notions of the artist’s life come into conflict with the reality of this theatre, in which the actresses are so underpaid they have to prostitute themselves to survive. While she may be able to resist the immorality, she can’t avoid the poverty. Before becoming a novelist Reymont worked in the theatre, and he clearly has a love for the stage. As the characters in the book debate the future of the dramatic arts, Reymont simultaneously glorifies the high ideals of the theatre while lamenting its poverty-stricken reality. There is some really profound stuff in chapter ten. Janina receives some advice from a stranger who represents a stoic philosophy of life diametrically opposed to her overly emotional nature. If only the rest of the book were this good! In the final three chapters one begins to see in Reymont’s writing some resemblance to the unflinching realism and social consciousness of the works of Emile Zola. In this debut novel, however, his potential is still unrealized.

It’s a shame that the only work by Reymont that’s readily available to English language readers is one that doesn’t adequately reflect his prodigious literary talent. Seek out and find The Peasants if you can. Meanwhile, I’ll be hunting for Promised Land.
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Selected Polish Tales by Boleslaw Prus, et al.

Mostly mediocre works by otherwise great authors
In 1915 and 1916, translator and editor Else C. M. Benecke published two collections of short stories and novellas entitled Tales by Polish Authors and More Tales by Polish Authors. She was working on a third collection at the time of her death. Completed by her colleague Marie Busch, this volume was published in 1921 under the title Selected Polish Tales. Perhaps the posthumous completion of the book explains why it feels like a collection of leftovers. Compared to the two volumes that proceeded it, this third collection is a disappointment.

Two-thirds of the volume is taken up by a complete novel, The Outpost by Boleslaw Prus. Though Prus is one of Poland’s most renowned authors, this is not his best work. Originally published in 1886, it tells the story of Josef Slimak, a gospodarz, or peasant landowner. Slimak embodies the peasantry’s admirable work ethic but also their ignorance and resistance to change. At first the book seems like it’s going to be about the interaction between the different social strata of Polish society. Then it becomes a tale of conflict between Slimak and some German colonists. Then a series of tragedies befalls Slimak. At first, these hardships are clearly the consequences of his poor decisions. Later in the book, however, Slimak suffers a number of essentially random catastrophes, and the book devolves from a tragedy into a miserable tale of woe. Though the novel offers some interesting perspective on Poland’s socioeconomic history, the story is relentlessly slow, and the unsatisfying ending leaves the reader with a feeling of pointlessness.

Nobel laureate Wladyslaw Reymont has two pieces in this book. In the preface, Busch says they are excerpts from his novel The Peasants. Having read The Peasants, however, I know that to be incorrect. They are obviously excerpts from some larger work, however, for they feel incomplete and out of context. The one entitled “Death” is a particularly fruitless meditation on misery, in which a dying man is abused by his daughter because he has disinherited her. It’s possible these selections come from great novels, but as presented here they fail to adequately represent Reymont’s formidable talents.

There are a couple of bright spots amidst this otherwise gray collection. Adam Szymanski’s “A Pinch of Salt” is set in Siberia among the Polish dissidents who have been exiled there. This story is the closest thing to lighthearted and touching that can be found in this otherwise bleak collection, and it even finishes off with a satisfying bit of a surprise ending. In the bleak category, the strongest piece is “The Sentence” by Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski. Set in World War I, it relates the story of a cold and starving old man whose cottage is encroached upon by a threatening band of Cossack soldiers. It is an emotionally powerful story that moves in some unexpected directions.

The absolute worst selection in the book is “P.P.C.” by Madame Rygier-Nalkowska, set in the early days of World War I. The resolution of the story hinges upon the abbreviation in the title, yet nowhere is it explained what these three letters stand for.

While there are some excellent authors included here, for the most part this collection doesn’t do justice to them. Rather than reading Selected Polish Tales, seek out the previous two volumes in this series, which are far superior to this one.

Stories in this collection

The Outpost by Boleslaw Prus 

A Pinch of Salt by Adam Szymanski 

Kowalski the Carpenter by Adam Szymanski 

Forebodings: Two Sketches by Stefan Zeromski 

A Polish Scene by Wladyslaw Reymont 

Death by Wladyslaw Reymont 

The Sentence by Juliusz Kaden-Bandrowski 

P.P.C. by Madame Rygier-Nalkowska 

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More Tales by Polish Authors by Boleslaw Prus, et al.

Another great collection of Polish short fiction

Boleslaw Prus

As is apparent from the title, this is the second volume in a series collecting the short stories of Polish authors. This collection, with English translations by Else C. M. Benecke and Marie Busch, was originally published in 1916.

The book leads off with two stories by Adam Szymanski, “Maciej the Mazur” and “Two Prayers.” Both depict the lives of Polish political exiles and colonists in Siberia. In Szymanski’s portrayal, Siberia is a bleak, frozen place inhabited by lonely souls who desperately seek each other out for any opportunity to share their memories, both good and bad, of the former lives they led in the beloved mother country. “The Chukchee” by Waclaw Sieroszewski is also set in Siberia, but deals with the indigenous population. A Polish colonist meets with a band of the nomadic Chukchee people, in hopes of opening a trading relationship with them. After the tribe departs his village, he joins a missionary expedition through treacherous terrain to visit the native people at their home camp in the remote tundra.

The bleak atmosphere that permeates this book is not confined to Siberia, but is applied to the small towns and rural villages of Poland as well. In “The Trial” by Nobel Prize winner Wladyslaw Reymont, when a mob of peasants discover the thieves who have been committing robberies in their village, they take the law into their own hands, trying and sentencing the accused with their own brutal brand of jurisprudence. Stefan Zeromski’s “The Stronger Sex” tells of a poor, idealistic doctor who opens a practice in a small provincial town. The overwhelming ignorance, superstition, and conservatism of the peasant populace deadens his intellect and robs him of any professional drive he once possessed. He is shaken from his lethargy one night, however, when he is informed that a school teacher in the next town has taken deathly ill.

The longest and best piece in the book is a 100-page novella by Boleslaw Prus entitled “The Returning Wave.” Gottlieb Adler is a self-made man who worked his way up from nothing to a position of wealth. As owner of a textile factory, he is the primary employer in his small town. Adler allows his son Ferdinand to live an idle, self-indulgent life. When the young man racks up tremendous debts, Adler transfers them to his factory laborers through economizing measures which extend the workers hours and lower their wages. Under his iron hand, however, the workers begin to show signs of unrest. This is an excellent piece of literature reminiscent of some of the best works by Emile Zola and Honoré de Balzac.

I don’t read Polish, so I can’t critique the translation, but I will say that at times the English prose is a bit awkward and hampers readability. Occasionally the text could use some clarification in simple matters like who’s speaking in a conversation or which direction a character is moving. This is more evident in the works of Szymanski and Sieroszewski, but not much of a problem in the Reymont or Prus entries. This collection has no introduction and only very limited footnotes, so you are expected to know the historical context behind these stories. American readers unfamiliar with Polish history may have to consult Wikipedia to get their bearings. These stories are worth the extra work, however. If you enjoy naturalistic literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, you will find that the Polish offerings in this series deserve a distinguished place in the canon of world literature.

Stories in this collection

Maciej the Mazur by Adam Szymanski 

Two Prayers by Adam Szymanski 

The Trial by Wladyslaw Reymont 

The Stronger Sex by Stefan Zeromski 

The Chukchee by Waclaw Sieroszewski 

The Returning Wave by Boleslaw Prus 

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The Peasants by Wladyslaw Reymont

The unknown masterpiece

Despite winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924, few Americans have heard Reymont’s name, much less read his work. That’s unfortunate, because this novel truly deserves a spot in the canon of world literature. It chronicles the lives of Polish peasants in the town of Lipka over the course of one year. The Peasants (Polish title: Chlopi) was published in four volumes: Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer. The four volumes must be read together, in order; they do not stand alone as individual books.

Mathias Boryna, the most prosperous farmer in Lipka, is getting on in years. His adult children want him to retire and hand the family land over to them. Boryna, on the other hand, still considers himself hale and hearty and decides to remarry to a young bride, much to the chagrin of his offspring. Complicating matters is the fact that Yagna, his new wife, is the most beautiful girl in the village, and she’s had a promiscuous past, including an affair with Boryna’s son Antek.

In subject matter this book bears some similarity to Emile Zola’s novel The Earth, and Reymont’s writing bears a striking resemblance to Zola’s brand of Naturalism as well. While many early 20th-century novelists were influenced by Zola, Reymont is the first I’ve come across that actually rivals the master himself. While I have read that this novel is set in the early years of the 20th century, it is really a timeless story, taking place in an indeterminate age. The only hint of temporal specificity is the fact that Lipka, at the time of the story, is under Russian rule. For the most part it deals with everyday issues of family life and community that transcend any particular time and place. You don’t have to know anything about Polish history to read this novel. It does not discuss any major historical or political events. You will, however, learn much about the customs, superstitions, farming practices, living conditions, and religious rituals of rural life in Poland. Reymont populates Lipka with so many complex characters and intertwining storylines that it surpasses William Falkner’s Yoknapatawpha County in its richness of detail and the completeness of its depiction of country life. You become so involved in the lives of these characters that by the time you get to the fourth volume you feel as if you’re ready to get behind the plow or vote in the local elections. This book is long out of print, but for lovers of great literature it’s definitely worth a search online or a trip to your local university library. (This review is based on the English translation by Michael H. Dziewicki.)
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